But there’s more, and it’s worse. Turns out Diana wasn’t the one who called 911. Two boys stumbled across her and Billy having sex in a playground. According to them, Diana was plastered, and Billy was being “forceful” or “aggressive,” so they called for help. When the cops showed up, Diana was hysterical and Billy was struggling. They put him in restraints and shoved him into a squad car.

As soon as Nate says “hysterical,” I’m reminded of another scene, a different dynamic: Billy’s Audi, a sexy two-seater, destroyed. Hood bashed in; headlights shattered. Glass awash on the pavement like water glinting in the sun. And there was Diana standing on the sidewalk, still swinging the bat, the textbook definition of hysterical. “You can’t leave me, Billy!”

What haunts me most about Diana Holly, even more than the violence, is her deceptiveness. When Billy first told me about her, I was thrilled. “She reminds me of you,” he said, to which I cracked, “That’s gross, Elmo,” and we both laughed. But he meant the way she looked after him. Between classes and labs, tutoring, twice-daily workouts and competing, every minute of Billy’s life is accounted for. Diana forced him to slow down, eat a decent dinner, relax in front of a movie. She was attentive and caring, which kept him balanced and sane. What a relief, I remember thinking, which of course I now regret; just as Billy probably regrets thinking she and I were anything alike.

Diana Holly, despite her mother hen act, is a manipulative and vindictive young woman. She’s one of those girls who plays down her attractiveness, like hiding her killer body under long wooly cardigans, as if there’s virtue in looking dowdy. She’s studying biology, and she’s very smart, with a lost-in-the-library quality I used to consider her best asset. It made her seem less vapid, more authentic than the preening show ponies we grew up with.

Women love my brothers, both of whom inherited their father’s good looks. Nate is tall and broad-shouldered, with a brilliant smile and carefree insouciance. He’s funny and sarcastic, so he gets a lot of play. But Billy is the one girls go truly bonkers over. He’s boyishly handsome, with silky black hair that falls in his face, dreamy blue eyes and a wounded affect that fuels their fantasies. While Nate and I always found it amusing to see how far girls would go to get, and then keep, our idiot brother’s attention, Diana Holly’s cunning and persistence genuinely alarmed us.